General political considerations based on my vienna period

TODAY it is my conviction that in general, aside from cases of unusual talent, a man
should not engage in public political activity before his thirtieth year. He should not
do so, because up to this time, as a rule, he is engaged in molding a general platform,
on the basis of which he proceeds to examine the various political problems and
finally establishes his own position on them. Only after he has acquired such a basic
philosophy, and the resultant firmness of outlook on the special problems of the day,
is he, inwardly at least, mature enough to be justified in partaking in the political
leadership of the general public.
Otherwise he runs the risk of either having to change his former position on
essential questions, or, contrary to his better knowledge and understanding, of
clinging to a view which reason and conviction have long since discarded. In the
former case this is most embarrassing to him personally, since, what with his own
vacillations, he cannot justifiably expect the faith of his adherents to follow him with
the same unswerving firmness as before; for those led by him, on the other hand, such
a reversal on the part of the leader means perplexity and not rarely a certain feeling of
shame toward those whom they hitherto opposed. In the second case, there occurs a
thing which, particularly today, often confronts us: in the same measure as the leader
ceases to believe in what he says, his arguments become shallow and flat, but he tries
to make up for it by vileness in his choice of means. While he himself has given up all
idea of fighting seriously for his political revelations (a man does not die for
something which he himself does not believe in), his demands on his supporters
become correspondingly greater and more shameless until he ends up by sacrificing
the last shred of leadership and turning into a 'politician; in other words, the kind of
man whose onlv real conviction is lack of conviction, combined with offensive
impertinence and an art of lying, often developed to the point of complete
shamelessness.
If to the misfortune of decent people such a character gets into a parliament, we
may as well realize at once that the essence of his politics will from now on consist in
nothing but an heroic struggle for the permanent possession of his feeding-bottle for
himself and his family. The more his wife and children depend on it, the more
tenaciously he will fight for his mandate. This alone will make every other man with

political instincts his personal enemy; in every new movement he will scent the
possible beginning of his end, and in every man of any greatness the danger which
menaces him through that man.
I shall have more to say about this type of parliamentary bedbug.
Even a man of thirty will have much to learn in the course of his life, but this will
only be to supplement and fill in the framework provided him by the philosophy he


has basically adopted When he learns, his learning will not have to be a revision of
principle, but a supplementary study, and his supporters will not have to choke down
the oppressive feeling that they have hitherto been falsely instructed by him. On the
contrary: the visible organic growth of the leader will give them satisfaction, for when
he learns, he will only be deepening their own philosophy. And this in their eyes will
be a proof for the correctness of the views they have hitherto held.
A leader who must depart from the platform of his general philosophy as such,
because he recognizes it to be false, behaves with decency only if, in recognizing the
error of his previous insight, he is prepared to draw the ultimate consequence. In such
a case he must, at the very least, renounce the public exercise of any further political
activity. For since in matters of basic knowledge he has once succumbed to an error,
there is a possibility that this will happen a second time. And in no event does he
retain the right to continue claiming, not to mention demanding, the confidence of his
fellow citizens.
How little regard is taken of such decency today is attested by the general
degeneracy of the rabble which contemporaneously feel justified in 'going into'
politics.
Hardly a one of them is fit for it.
I had carefully avoided any public appearance, though I think that I studied
politics more closely than many other men. Only in the smallest groups did I speak of
the things which inwardly moved or attracted me. This speaking in the narrowest
circles had many good points: I learned to orate less, but to know people with their

opinions and objections that were often so boundlessly primitive. And I trained
myself, without losing the time and occasion for the continuance of my own
education. It is certain that nowhere else in Germany was the opportunity for this so
favorable as in Vienna.
General political thinking in the old Danubian monarchy was just then broader and
more comprehensive in scope than in old Germany, excluding parts of Prussia,
Hamburg, and the North Sea coast, at the same period. In this case, to be sure, I
understand, under the designation of 'Austria,' that section of the great Habsburg
Empire which, in consequence of its German settlement, not only was the historic
cause of the very formation of this state, but whose population, moreover, exclusively
demonstrated that power which for so many centuries was able to give this structure,
so artificial in the political sense, its inner cultural life. As time progressed, the
existence and future of this state came to depend more and more on the preservation
of this nuclear cell of the Empire.


If the old hereditary territories were the heart of the Empire continually driving
fresh blood into the circulatory stream of political and cultural life, Vienna was the
brain and will in one
Its mere outward appearance justified one in attributing to this city the power to
reign as a unifying queen amid such a conglomeration of peoples, thus by the radiance
of her own beauty causing us to forget the ugly symptoms of old age in the structure
as a whole.
The Empire might quiver and quake beneath the bloody battles of the different
nationalities, yet foreigners, and especially Germans, saw only the charming
countenance of this city. Wblt made the deception all the greater was that Vienna at
that time seemed engaged in what was perhaps its last and greatest visible revival.
Under the rule of a truly gifted mayor, the venerable residence of the Emperors of the
old regime awoke once more to a :-niraculous youth. The last great German to be born
in the ranks of the people who had colonized the Ostmark was not officially numbered

among socalled Statesmen'; but as mayor of Vienna, this capital and imperial
residence,' Dr. Lueger conjured up one amazing achievement after another in, we may
say, every field of economic and cultural municipal politics, thereby strengthening the
heart of the whole Empire, and indirectly becoming a statesman greater than all the
so-called 'diplomats' of the time
If the conglomeration of nations called 'Austria' nevertheless perished in the end,
this does not detract in the least from the political ability of the Germans in the old
Ostmark, but was the necessary result of the impossibility of permanently maintaining
a state of fifty million people of different nationalities by means of ten million people,
unless certain definite prerequisites were established in time.
The ideas of the German-Austrian were more than grandiose.
He had always been accustomed to living in a great empire and had never lost his
feeling for the tasks bound up with it. He was the only one in this state who, beyond
the narrow boundaries of the crown lands, still saw the boundaries of the Reich;
indeed, when Fate finally parted him from the common fatherland, he kept on striving
to master the gigantic task and preserve for the German people what his fathers had
once wrested from the East in endless struggles. In this connection it should be borne
in mind that this had to be done with divided energy; for the heart and memory of the
best never ceased to feel for the common mother country, and only a remnant was left
for the homeland.
The general horizon of the German-Austrian was in itself comparatively broad.
His economic connections frequently embraced almost the entire multiform Empire.


Nearly all the big business enterprises were in his hands; the directing personnel, both
technicians and officials, were in large part provided by him. He was also in charge of
foreign trade in so far as the Jews had not laid their hands on this domain, which they
have always seized for their own. Politically, he alone held the state together. Military
service alone cast him far beyond the narrow boundaries of his homeland. The
German-Austrian recruit might join a German regiment, but the regiment itself might

equally well be in Herzegovina, Vienna, or Galicia. The officers' corps was still
German, the higher officials predominantly so. Finally, art and science were German.
Aside from the trash of the more modern artistic development, which a nation of
Negroes might just as well have produced, the German alone possessed and
disseminated a truly artistic attitude. In music, architecture, sculpture, and painting,
Vienna was the source supplying the entire dual monarchy in inexhaustible
abundance, without ever seeming to go dry itself.
Finally, the Germans directed the entire foreign policy if we disregard a small
number of Hungarians.
And yet any attempt to preserve this Empire was in vain, for the most essential
premise was lacking.
For the Austrian state of nationalities there was only one possibility of overcoming
the centrifugal forces of the individual nations. Either the state was centrally governed
hence internally organized along the same lines. or it was altogether inconceivable.
At various lucid moments this insight dawned on the ' supreme ' authority. But as a
rule it was soon forgotten or shelved as difficult of execution. Any thought of a more
federative organization of the Empire was doomed to failure owing to the lack of a
strong political germ-cell of outstanding power. Added to this were the internal
conditions of the Austrian state which differed essentially from the German Empire of
Bismarck. In Germany it was only a question of overcoming political conditions,
since there was always a common cultural foundation. Above all, the Reich, aside
from little foreign splinters, embraced members of only one people.
In Austria the opposite was the case.
Here the individual provinces, aside from Hungary, lacked any political memory
of their own greatness, or it had been erased by the sponge of time, or at least blurred
and obscured. In the period when the principle of nationalities was developing,
however, national forces rose up in the various provinces, and to counteract them was
all the more difficult as on the rim of the monarchy national states began to form
whose populations, racially equivalent or related to the Austrian national splinters,

were now able to exert a greater power of attraction than, conversely, remained
possible for the GermanAustrian.
Even Vienna could not forever endure this struggle.
With the development of Budapest into a big city, she had for the first time a rival
whose task was no longer to hold the entire monarchy together, but rather to
strengthen a part of it. In a short time Prague was to follow her example, then
Lemberg, Laibach, etc. With the rise of these former provincial cities to national
capitals of individual provinces, centers formed for more or less independent cultural
life in these provinces. And only then did the politico-national instincts obtain their
spiritual foundation and depth. The time inevitably approached when these dynamic
forces of the individual peoples would grow sponger than the force of common
interests, and that would be the end of Austria.
Since the death of Joseph II the course of this development was clearly
discernible. Its rapidity depended on a series of factors which in part lay in the
monarchy itself and in part were the result of the Empire's momentary position on
foreign policy.
If the fighf for the preservation of this state was to be taken up and carried on in
earnest, only a ruthless and persistent policy of centralization could lead to the goal.
First of all, the purely formal cohesion had to be emphasized by the establishment in
principle of a uniform official language, and the administration had to be given the
technical implement without which a unified state simply cannot exist. Likewise a
unified state-consciousness could only be bred for any length of time by schools and
education. This was not feasible in ten or twenty years; it was inevitably a matter of
centuries; for in all questions of colonization, persistence assumes greater importance
than the energy of the moment.
It goes without saying that the administration as well as the political direction
must be conducted with strict uniforrnity. To me it was infinitely instructive to
ascertain why this did not occur,. or rather, why it was not done.l He who was guilty
of this omission was alone to blame for the collapse of the Empire.

Old Austria more than any other state depended on the greatness of her leaders.
The foundation was lacking for a national state, which in its national basis always
possesses the power of survival, regardless how deficient the leadership as such may
be. A homogeneous national state can, by virtue of the natural inertia of its
inhabitants, and the resulting power of resistance, sometimes withstand astonishingly
long periods of the worst administration or leadership without inwardly disintegrating.
At such times it often seems as though there were no more life in such a body, as


though it were dead and done for, but one fine day the supposed corpse suddenly rises
and gives the rest of humanity astonishing indications of its unquenchable vital force.
It is different, however, with an empire not consisting of similar peoples, which is
held together not by common blood but by a common fist. In this case the weakness
of leadership will not cause a hibernation of the state, but an awakening of all the
individual instincts which are present in the blood, but carmot develop in times when
there is a dominant will. Only by a common education extending over centuries, by
common tradition, common interests, etc., can this danger be attenuated. Hence the
younger such state formations are, the more they depend on the greatness of
leadership, and if they are the work of outstanding soldiers and spiritual heroes, they
often crumble immediately after the death of the great solitary founder. But even after
centuries these dangers cannot be regarded as overcome; they only lie dormant, often
suddenly to awaken as soon as the weakness of the common leadership and the force
of education and all the sublime traditions can no longer overcome the impetus of the
vital urge of the individual tribes.
Not to have understood this is perhaps the tragic guilt of the House of Habsburg.
For only a single one of them did Fate once again raise high the torch over the
future of his country, then it was extinguished for-ever.
Joseph IIX Roman Emperor of the German nation, saw with fear and trepidation
how his House, forced to the outermost corner of the Empire, would one day
inevitably vanish in the maelstrom of a Babylon of nations unless at the eleventh hour

the omissions of his forefathers were made good. With super-human power this 'friend
of man' braced himself against the negligence of his ancestors and endeavored to
retrieve in one decade what centuries had failed to do. If he had been granted only
forty years for his work, and if after him even two generations had continued his work
as he began it, the miracle would probably have been achieved. But when, after
scarcely ten years on the thrones worn in body and soul, he died, his work sank with
him into the grave, to awaken no more and sleep forever in the Capuchin crypt. His
successors were equal to the task neither in mind nor in will.
When the first revolutionary lightnings of a new era flashed through Europe,
Austria, too, slowly began to catch fire, little by little. But when the fire at length
broke out, the flame was fanned less by social or general political causes than by
dynamic forces of national origin.
The revolution of 1848 may have been a class struggle everywhere, but in Austria
it was the beginning of a new racial war. By forgetting or not recognizing this origin
and putting themselves in the service of the revolutionary uprising, the Germans


sealed their own fate. They helped to arouse the spirit of 'Western democracy,' which
in a short time removed the foundations of their own existence.
With the formation of a parliamentary representative body without the previous
establishment and crystallization of a common state language, the cornerstone had
been laid for the end of German domination of the monarchy.' From this moment on
the state itself was lost. All that followed was merely the historic liquidation of an
empire.
To follow this process of dissolution was as heartrending as it was instructive.
This execution of an historical sentence was carried out in detail in thousands and
thousands of forrns. The fact that a large part of the people moved blindly through the
manifestations of decay showed only that the gods had willed Austria's destruction.
I shall not lose myself in details on this point, for that is not the function of this
book. I shall only submit to a more thoroughgoing observation those events which are

the everunchanging causes of the decline of nations and states, thus possessing
significance for our time as well, and which ultimately contributed to securing the
foundations of my own political thinking.
At the head of those institutions which could most clearly have revealed the
erosion of the Austrian monarchy, even to a shopkeeper not otherwise gifted with
sharp eyes, was one which ought to have had the greatest strength parliament, or, as it
was called in Austria, the Reichsrat.
Obviously the example of this body had been taken from England, the land of
classical 'democracy.' From there the whole blissful institution was taken and
transferred as unchanged as possible to Vienna.
The English two-chamber system was solemnly resurrected in the
Abgeordnetenhaus and the Herrenhaus. Except that the houses' themselves were
somewhat different. When Barry raised his parliament buildings from the waters of
the Thames, he thrust into the history of the British Empire and from it took the
decorations for the twelve hundred niches, consoles, and pillars of his magnificent
edifice. Thus, in their sculpture and painting, the House of Lords and the House of
Commons became the nation's Hall of Fame.
This was where the first difficulty came in for Vienna. For when Hansen, the
Danish builder, had completed the last pinnacle on the marble building of the new
parliament, there was nothing he could use as decoration except borrowings from
antiquity. Roman and &reek statesmen and philosophers now embellish this opera
house of Western democracy, and in symbolic irony the quadrigae fiy from one


another in all four directions above the two houses, in this way giving the best
external expres sion of the activities that went on inside the building.
The 'nationalities' had vetoed the glorification of Austrian
history in this work as an insult and provocation, just as in the Reich itself it was
only beneath the thunder of World War battles that they dared to dedicate Wallot's
Reichstag Building to the German people by an inscription.

When, not yet twenty years old, I set foot for the first time in the magnificent
building on the Franzensring to attend a session of the House of Deputies as a
spectator and listener, I was seized with the most conflicting sentiments.
I had always hated parliament, but not as an institution in itself. On the contrary,
as a freedom-loving man I could not even conceive of any other possibility of
government, for the idea of any sort of dictatorship would, in view of my attitude
toward the House of Habsburg, have seemed to me a crime against freedom and all
reason.
What contributed no little to this was that as a young man, in consequence of my
extensive newspaper reading, I had, without myself realizing it, been inoculated with
a certain admiration for the British Parliament, of which I was not easily able to rid
myself. The dignity with which the Lower House there fulfilled its tasks (as was so
touchingly described in our press) impressed me immensely. Could a people have any
more exalted form of selfgovernment?
But for this very reason I was an enemy of the Austrian parliament. I considered
its whole mode of conduct unworthy of the great example. To this the following was
now added:
The fate of the Germans in the Austrian state was dependent on their position in
the Reichsrat. Up to the introduction of universal and secret suffrage, the Germans
had had a majority, though an insignificant one, in parliament. Even this condition
was precarious, for the Social Democrats, with their unreliable attitude in national
questions, always turned against German interests in critical matters affecting the
Germans-in order not to alienate the members of the various foreign nationalities.
Even in those days the Social Democracy could not be regarded as a German party.
And with the introduction of universal suffrage the German superiority ceased even in
a purely numerical sense. There was no longer any obstacle in the path of the further
de-Germanization of the state.


For this reason my instinct of national self-preservation caused me even in those

days to have little love for a representative body in which the Germans were always
misrepresented rather than represented. Yet these were deficiencies which, like so
many others, were attributable, not to the thing in itself, but to the Austrian state. I still
believed that if a German majority were restored in the representative bodies, there
would no longer be any reason for a principled opposition to them, that is, as long as
the old state continued to exist at all.
These were my inner sentiments when for the first time I set foot in these halls as
hallowed as they were disputed. For me, to be sure, they were hallowed only by the
lofty beauty of the magnificent building. A Hellenic miracle on German soil!
How soon was I to grow indignant when I saw the lamentable comedy that
unfolded beneath my eyes!
Present were a few hundred of these popular representatives who had to take a
position on a question of most vital economic importance.
The very first day was enough to stimulate me to thought for weeks on end.
The intellectual content of what these men said was on a really depressing level, in
so far as you could understand their babbling at all; for several of the gentlemen did
not speak German, but their native Slavic languages or rather dialects. I now had
occasion to hear with my own ears what previously I had known only from reading
the newspapers. A wild gesticulating mass screaming all at once in every different
key, presided over by a goodnatured old uncle who was striving in the sweat of his
brow to revive the dignity of the House by violently ringing his bell and alternating
gentle reproofs with grave admonitions.
I couldn't help laughing.
A few weeks later I was in the House again. The picture was changed beyond
recognition. The hall was absolutely empty. Down below everybody was asleep. A
few deputies were in their places, yawning at one another; one was 'speaking.' A
vicepresident of the House was present, looking into the hall with obvious boredom.
The first misgivings arose in me. From now on, whenever time offered me the
slightest opportunity, I went back and, with silence and attention, viewed whatever
picture presented itself, listened to the speeches in so far as they were intelligible,

studied the more or less intelligent faces of the elect of the peoples of this woe-begone
state-and little by little formed my own ideas.


A year of this tranquil observation sufficed totally to change or eliminate my
former view of the nature of this institution. My innermost position was no longer
against the misshapen form which this idea assumed in Austria; no, by now I could no
longer accept the parliament as such. Up till then I had seen the misfortune of the
Austrian parliament in the absence of a German majority; now I saw that its ruination
lay in the whole nature and essence of the institution as such.
A whole series of questions rose up in me.
I began to make myself familiar with the democratic principle of majority rule as
the foundation of this whole institution, but devoted no less attention to the
intellectual and moral values of these gentlemen, supposedly the elect of the nations,
who were expected to serve this purpose.
Thus I came to know the institution and its representatives at once.
In the course of a few years, my knowledge and insight shaped a plastic model of
that most dignified phenomenon of modern times: the parliamentarian. He began to
impress himself upon me in a form which has never since been subjected to any
essential change.
Here again the visual instruction of practical reality had prevented me from being
stifled by a theory which at first sight seemed seductive to so many, but which none
the less must be counted among the symptoms of human degeneration.
The Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism which without it
would not be thinkable. It provides this world plague with the culture in which its
germs can spread. In its most extreme forrn, parliamentarianism created a 'monstrosity
of excrement and fire,' in which, however, sad to say, the 'fire' seems to me at the
moment to be burned out.
I must be more than thankful to Fate for laying this question before me while I
was in Vienna, for I fear that in Germany at that time I would have found the answer

too easily. For if I had first encountered this absurd institution known as 'parliament'
in Berlin, I might have fallen into the opposite fallacy, and not without seemingly
good cause have sided with those who saw the salvation of the people and the Reich
exclusively in furthering the power of the imperial idea, and who nevertheless were
alien and blind at once to the times and the people involved.
In Austria this was impossible.


Here it was not so easy to go from one mistake to the other. If parliament was
worthless, the Habsburgs were even more worthless-in no event, less so. To reject
'parliamentarianism' was not enough, for the question still remained open: what then?
The rejection and abolition of the Reichsrat would have left the House of Habsburg
the sole governing force, a thought which, especially for me, was utterly intolerable.
The difficulty of this special case led me to a more thorough contemplation of the
problem as such than would otherwise have been likely at such tender years.
What gave me most food for thought was the obvious absence of any
responsibility in a single person.
The parliament arrives at some decision whose consequences may be ever so
ruinous-nobody bears any responsibility for this, no one can be taken to account. For
can it be called an acceptance of responsibility if, after an unparalleled catastrophe,
the guilty government resigns? Or if the coalition changes, or even if parliament is
itself dissolved?
Can a fluctuating majority of people ever be made responsible in any case?
Isn't the very idea of responsibility bound up with the individual?
But can an individual directing a government be made practically responsiblefor
actions whose preparation and execution must be set exclusively to the account of the
will and inclination of a multitude of men?
Or will not the task of a leading statesman be seen, not in the birth of a creative
idea or plan as such, but rather in the art of making the brilliance of his projects
intelligible to a herd of sheep and blockheads, and subsequently begging for their kind

approval?
Is it the criterion of the statesman that he should possess the art of persuasion in as
high degree as that of political intelligence in formulating great policies or decisions?
Is the incapacity of a leader shown by the fact that he does not succeed in winning for
a certain idea the majority of a mob thrown together by more or less savory accidents?
Indeed, has this mob ever understood an idea before success proclaimed its
greatness?
Isn't every deed of genius in this world a visible protest of genius against the
inertia of the mass?


And what should the statesman do, who does not succeed in gaining the favor of
this mob for his plans by flattery?
Should he buy it?
Or, in view of the stupidity of his fellow citizens, should he renounce the
execution of the tasks which he has recognized to be vital necessities? Should he
resign or should he remain at his post?
In such a case, doesn't a man of true character find himself in a hopeless conflict
between knowledge and decency, or rather honest conviction?
Where is the dividing line between his duty toward the general public and his duty
toward his personal honor?
Mustn't every true leader refuse to be thus degraded to the level of a political
gangster?
And, conversely, mustn't every gangster feel that he is cut out for politics, since it
is never he, but some intangible mob, which has to bear the ultimate responsibility?
Mustn't our principle of parliamentary majorities lead to the demolition of any
idea of leadership?
Does anyone believe that the progress of this world springs from the mind of
majoritiesand not from the brains of individuals?
Or does anyone expect that the future will be able to dispense with this premise of

human culture?
Does it not, on the contrary, today seem more indispensable than ever?
By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of
some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the
basic aristocratic principle of Nature, though it must be said that this view is not
necessarily embodied in the present-day decadence of our upper ten thousand.
The devastation caused by this institution of modern parliamentary rule is hard for
the reader of Jewish newspapers to imagine, unless he has learned to think and
examine independently. It is, first and foremost, the cause of the incredible inundation
of all political life with the most inferior, and I mean the most inferior, characters of
our time. Just as the true leader will withdraw from all political activity which does


not consist primarily in creative achievement and work, but in bargaining and
haggling for the favor of the majority, in the same measure this activity will suit the
small mind and consequently attract it.
The more dwarfish one of these present-day leathermerchants is in spirit and
ability, the more clearly his own insight makes him aware of the lamentable figure he
actually cuts-that much more will he sing the praises of a system which does not
demand of him the power and genius of a giant, but is satisfied with the craftiness of a
village mayor, preferring in fact this kind of wisdom to that of a Pericles. And this
kind doesn't have to torment himself with responsibility for his actions. He is entirely
removed from such worry, for he well knows that, regardless what the result of his
'statesmanlike' bungling may be, his end has long been written in the stars: one day he
will have to cede his place to another equally great mind, for it is one of the
characteristics of this decadent system that the number of great statesmen increases in
proportion as the stature of the individual decreases With increasing dependence on
parliamentary majorities it will inevitably continue to shrink, since on the one hand
great minds will refuse to be the stooges of idiotic incompetents and bigmouths, and
on the other, conversely, the representatives of the majority, hence of stupidity, hate

nothing more passionately than a superior mind.
For such an assembly of wise men of Gotham, it is always a consolation to know
that they are headed by a leader whose intelligence is at the level of those present: this
will give each one the pleasure of shining from time to time-and, above all, if Tom
can be master, what is to prevent Dick and Harry from having their turn too?
This invention of democracy is most intimately related to a quality which in recent
times has grown to be a real disgrace, to wit, the cowardice of a great part of our socalled 'leadership. What luck to be able to hide behind the skirts of a so-called
majority in all decisions of any real importance!
Take a look at one of these political bandits. How anxiously he begs the approval
of the majority for every measure, to assure himself of the necessary accomplices, so
he can unload the responsibility at any time. And this is one of the main reasons why
this type of political activity is always repulsive and hateful to any man who is decent
at heart and hence courageous, while it attracts all low characters-and anyone who is
unwilling to take personal responsibility for his acts, but seeks a shield, is a cowardly
scoundrel. When the leaders of a nation consist of such vile creatures, the results will
soon be deplorable. Such a nation will be unable to muster the courage for any
determined act; it will prefer to accept any dishonor, even the most shameful, rather
than rise to a decision; for there is no one who is prepared of his own accord to pledge
his person and his head for the execution of a dauntless resolve.


For there is one thing which we must never forget: in this, too, the majority can
never replace the man. It is not only a representative of stupidity, but of cowardice as
well. And no more than a hundred empty heads make one wise man will an heroic
decision arise from a hundred cowards.
The less the responsibility of the individual leader, the more numerous will be
those who, despite their most insignificant stature, feel called upon to put their
immortal forces in the service of the nation. Indeed, they will be unable to await their
turn; they stand in a long line, and with pain and regret count the number of those
waiting ahead of them, calculating almost the precise hour at which, in all probability,

their turn will come. Consequently, they long for any change in the office hovering
before their eyes, and are thankful for any scandal which thins out the ranks ahead of
them. And if some man is unwilling to move from the post he holds, this in their eyes
is practically a breach of a holy pact of solidarity. They grow vindictive, and they do
not rest until the impudent fellow is at last overthrown, thus turning his warm place
back to the public. And, rest assured, he won't recover the position so easily. For as
soon as one of these creatures is forced to give up a position, he will try at once to
wedge his way into the 'waiting-line' unless the hue and cry raised by the others
prevents him.
The consequence of all this is a terrifying turn-over in the most important offices
and positions of such a state, a result which is always harmful, but sometimes
positively catastrophic. For it is not only the simpleton and incompetent who will fall
victim to thus custom, but to an even greater extent the real leader, if Fate somehow
manages to put one in this place. As soon as this fact has been recognized, a solid
front will form against him, especially if such a mind has not arisen from their own
ranks, but none the less dares to enter into this exalted society. For on principle these
gentry like to be among themselves and they hate as a common enemy any brain
which stands even slightly above the zeros. And in this respect their instinct is as
much sharper as it is deficient in everything else.
The result will be a steadily expanding intellectual impoverishment of the leading
circles. The result for the nation and the state, everyone can judge for himself,
excepting in so far as he himself is one of these kind of 'leaders.'
Old Austria possessed the parliamentary regime in its purest form.
To be sure, the prime ministers were always appointed by the Emperor and King,
but this very appointment was nothing halt the execution of the parliamentary will.
The haggling and bargaining for the individual portfolios represented Western
democracy of the first water. And the results corresponded to the principles applied.
Particularly the change of individual personalities occurred in shorter and shorter

terms, ultimately becoming a veritable chase. In the same measure, the stature of the '
statesmen ' steadily diminished until finally no one remained but that type of
parliamentary gangster whose statesmanship could only be measured and recognized
by their ability in pasting together the coalitions of the moment; in other words,
concluding those pettiest of political bargains which alone demonstrate the fitness of
these representatives of the people for practical work.
Thus the Viennese school transmitted the best impressions in this field.
But what attracted me no less was to compare the ability and knowledge of these
representatives of the people and the tasks which awaited them. In this case, whether I
liked it or not, I was impelled to examine more closely the intellectual horizon of
these elect of the nations themselves, and in so doing, I could not avoid giving the
necessary attention to the processes which lead to the discovery of these ornaments of
our public life.
The way in which the real ability of these gentlemen was applied and placed in the
service of the fatherland-in other words, the technical process of their activity-was
also worthy of thorough study and investigation.
The more determined I was to penetrate these inner conditions, to study the
personalities and material foundations with dauntless and penetrating objectivity, the
more deplorable became my total picture of parliamentary life. Indeed, this is an
advisable procedure in dealing with an institution which, in the person of its
representatives, feels obliged to bring up ' objectivity ' in every second sentence as the
only proper basis for every investigation and opinion. Investigate these gentlemen
themselves and the laws of their sordid existence, and you will be amazed at the
result.
There is no principle which, objectively considered, is as false a,s that of
parliamentarianism.
Here we may totally disregard the manner in which our fine representatives of the
people are chosen, how they arrive at their office and their new dignity. That only the
tiniest fraction of them rise in fulfillment of a general desire, let alone a need, will at
once be apparent to anyone who realizes that the political understanding of the broad

masses is far from being highly enough developed to arrive at definite general
political views of their own accord and seek out the suitable personalities.
The thing we designate by the word 'public opinion' rests only in the smallest part
on experience or knowledge which the individual has acquired by hirnself, but rather


on an idea which is inspired by so-called 'enlightenment,' often of a highly persistent
and obtrusive type.
Just as a man's denominational orientation is the result of upbringing, and only the
religious need as such slumbers in his soul, the political opinion of the masses
represents nothing but the final result of an incredibly tenacious and thorough
manipulation of their mind and soul.
By far the greatest share in their political 'education,' which in this case is most
aptly designated by the word 'propaganda,' falls to the account of the press. It is
foremost in performing this 'work of enlightenment' and thus represents a sort of
school for grown-ups. This instruction, however, is not in the hands of the state, but in
the claws of forces which are in part very inferior. In Vienna as a very young man I
had the best opportunity to become acquainted with the owners and spiritual
manufacturers of this machine for educating the masses. At first I could not help but
be amazed at how short a time it took this great evil power within the state to create a
certain opinion even where it meant totally falsifying profound desiresand views
which surely existed among the public. In a few days a ridiculous episode had become
a significant state action, while, conversely, at the same time, vital problems fell a
prey to public oblivion, or rather were simply filched from the memory and
consciousness of the masses.
Thus, in the course of a few weeks it was possible to conjure up names out of the
void, to associate them with incredible hopes on the part of the broad public, even to
give them a popularity which the really great man often does not obtain his whole life
long; names which a month before no one had even seen or heard of, while at the
same time old and proved figures of political or other public life, though in the best

ofhealth, simply died as far as their fellow men were concemed, or were heaped with
such vile insults that their names soon threatened to become the symbol of some
definite act of infamy or villainy. We must study this vile Jewish technique of
emptying garbage pails full of the vilest slanders and defamations from hundreds and
hundreds of sources at once, suddenly and as if by magic, on the clean garments of
honorable men, if we are fully to appreciate the entire menace represented by these
scoundrels of the press.
There is absolutely nothing one of these spiritual robberbarons will not do to
achieve his savory aims.
He will poke into the most secret family affairs and not rest until his trufResearching instinct digs up some miserable incident which is calculated to finish off the
unfortunate victim. But if, after the most careful sniffing, absolutely nothing is found,
either in the man's public or private life, one of these scoundrels simply seizes on


slander, in the firm conviction that despite a thousand refutations something always
sticks and, moreover, through the immediate and hundredfold repetition of his
defamations by all his accomplices, any resistance on the part of the victim is in most
cases utterly impossible; and it must be borne in mind that this rabble never acts out of
motives which might seem credible or even understandable to the rest of humanity.
God forbid! While one of these scum is attacking his beloved fellow men in the most
contemptible fashion, the octopus covers himself with a veritable cloud of
respectability and unctuous phrases, prates about ' journalistic duty ' and suchlike lies,
and even goes so far as to shoot off his mouth at committee meetings and congressesthat is, occasions where these pests are present in large numbers -about a very special
variety of 'honor,' to wit, the journalistic variety, which the assembled rabble gravely
and mutually confirm.
These scum manufacture more than three quarters of the so-called 'public opinion,'
from whose foam the parliamentarian Aphrodite arises. To give an accurate
description of this process and depict it in all its falsehood and improbability, one
would have to write volumes. But even if we disregard all this and examine only the
given product along with its activity, this seems to me enough to make the objective

lunacy of this institution dawn on even the naivest mind.
This human error, as senseless as it is dangerous, will most readily be understood
as soon as we compare democratic parliamentarianism with a truly Germanic
democracy.
The distinguishing feature of the former is that a body of, let us say five hundred
men, or in recent times even women, is chosen and entrusted with making the ultimate
decision in any and all matters. And so for practical purposes they alone are the
government; for even if they do choose a cabinet which undertakes the external
direction of the affairs of state, this is a mere sham. In reality this so-called
government cannot take a step without first obtaining the approval of the general
assembly. Consequently, it cannot be made responsible for anything, since the
ultimate decision never lies with it, but with the majority of parliament. In every case
it does nothing but carry out the momentary will of the majority. Its political ability
can only be judged according to the skill with which it understands how either to
adapt itself to the will of the majority or to pull the majority over to its side. Thereby
it sinks from the heights of real government to the level of a beggar confronting the
momentary majority. Indeed, its most urgent task becomes nothing more than either to
secure the favor of the existing majority, as the need arises, or to form a majority with
more friendly inclinations. If this succeeds, it may 'govern' a little while longer; if it
doesn't succeed, it can resign. The soundness of its purposes as such is beside the
point.


For practical purposes, this excludes all responsibility
To what consequences this leads can be seen from a few simple considerations:
The internal composition of the five hundred chosen representatives of the people,
with regard to profession or even individual abilities, gives a picture as incoherent as
it is usually deplorable. For no one can believe that these men elected by the nation
are elect of spirit or even of intelligence ! It is to be hoped that no one will suppose
that the ballots of an electorate which is anything else than brilliant will give rise to

statesmen by the hundreds. Altogether we cannot be too sharp in condemning the
absurd notion that geniuses can be born from general elections. In the first place, a
nation only produces a real statesman once in a blue moon and not a hundred or more
at once; and in the second place, the revulsion of the masses for every outstanding
genius is positively instinctive. Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a
great man be ' discovered' by an election.
In world history the man who really rises above the norm of the broad average
usually announces himself personally.
As it is, however, five hundred men, whose stature is to say the least modest, vote
on the most important affairs of the nation, appoint governments which in every single
case and in every special question have to get the approval of the exalted assembly, so
that policy is really made by five hundred.
And that is just what it usually looks like.
But even leaving the genius of these representatives of the people aside, bear in
mind how varied are the problems awaiting attention, in what widely removed fields
solutions and decisions must be made, and you will realize how inadequate a
governing institution must be which transfers the ultimate right of decision to a mass
assembly of people, only a tiny fraction of which possess knowledge and experience
of the matter to be treated. The most important economic measures are thus submitted
to a forum, only a tenth of whose members have any economic education to show.
This is nothing more nor less than placing the ultimate decision in a matter in the
hands of men totally lacking in every prerequisite for the task.
The same is true of every other question. The decision is always made by a
majority of ignoramuses and incompetents, since the composition of this institution
remains unchanged while the problems under treatment extend to nearly every
province of public life and would thereby presuppose a constant turn-over in the
deputies who are to judge and decide on them, since it is impossible to let the same
persons decide matters of transportation as, let us say, a question of high for eign

policy. Otherwise these men would all have to be universal geniuses such as we
actually seldom encounter once in centuries. Unfortunately we are here confronted,
for the most part, not with 'thinkers,' but with dilettantes as limited as they are
conceited and infiated, intellectual demimonde of the worst sort. And this is the
source of the often incomprehensible frivolity with which these gentry speak and
decide on things which would require careful meditation even in the greatest minds.
Measures of the gravest significance for the future of a whole state, yes, of a nation,
are passed as though a game of schafDopf or tarock,l which would certainly be better
suited to their abilities, lay on the table before them and not the fate of a race.
Yet it would surely be unjust to believe that all of the deputies in such a
parliament were personally endowed with so little sense of responsibility.
No, by no means.
But by forcing the individual to take a position on such questions completely illsuited to him, this system gradually ruins hus character. No one will summon up the
courage to declare: Gentlemen, I believe we understand nothing about this matter I
personally certainly do not.' (Besides, this would change mat ters little, for surely this
kind of honesty would remain totally unappreciated, and what is more, our friends
would scarcely allow one honorable jackass to spoil their whole game.) Anyone with
a knowledge of people will realize that in such an illustrious company no one is eager
to be the stupidest, and in certain circles honesty is almost synonymous with stupidity
Thus, even the representative who at first was honest is thrown
end page 89
Page 90
into this track of general falsehood and deceit. The very conviction that the nonparticipation of an individual in the business would in itself change nothing kills every
honorable impulse which may rise up in this or that deputy. And finally, moreover, he
may tell himself that he personally is far from being the worst among the others, and
that the sole effect of his collaboration is perhaps to prevent worse things from
happening.
It will be objected, to be sure, that. though the individual deputy possesses no
special understanding in this or that matter, his position has been discussed by the
fraction which directs the policy of the gentleman in question, and that the fraction

has its special committees which are more than adequately enlightened by experts
anyway.


At first glance this seems to be true. But then the question arises: Why are five
hundred chosen when only a few possess the necessary wisdom to take a position in
the most important matters?
And this is the worm in the apple!
It is not the aim of our present-day parliamentarianism to constitute an assembly
of wise men, but rather to compose a band of mentally dependent nonentities who are
the more easily led in certain directions, the greater is the personal limitation of the
individual. That is the only way of carrying on party politics in the malodorous
present-day sense. And only in this way is it possible for the real wirepuller to remain
carefully in the background and never personally be called to responsibility. For then
every decision, regardless how harmful to the nation, will not be set to the account of
a scoundrel visible to all, but will be unloaded on the shoulders of a whole fraction.
And thereby every practical responsibility vanishes. For responsibility can lie only
in the obligation of an individual and not in a parliamentary bull session.
Such an institution can only please the biggest liars and sneaks of the sort that
shun the light of day, because it is inevitably hateful to an honorable, straightforward
man who welcomes personal responsibility.
And that is why this type of democracy has become the instrument of that race
which in its inner goals must shun the light of day, now and in all ages of the future.
Only the Jew can praise an institution which is as dirty and false as he himself.

Juxtaposed to this is the truly Germanic democracy characterized by the free election
of a leader and his obligation fully to assume all responsibility for his actions and
omissions. In it there is no majority vote on individual questions, but only the decision
of an individual who must answer with his fortune and his life for his choice.
If it be objected that under such conditions scarcely anyone would be prepared to

dedicate his person to so risky a task, there is but one possible answer:
Thank the Lord, Germanic democracy means just this: that any old climber or
moral slacker cannot rise by devious paths to govern his national comrades, but that,
by the very greatness of the responsibility to be assumed, incompetents and weaklings
are frightened off.


But if, nevertheless, one of these scoundrels should attempt to sneak in, we can
find him more easily, and mercilessly challenge him: Out, cowardly scoundrel!
Remove your foot, you are besmirching the steps; the front steps of the Pantheon of
history are not for sneak-thieves, but for heroes!

I had fought my way to this conclusion after two years attendance at the Vienna
parliament.
After that I never went back.
The parliamentary regime shared the chief blame for the weakness, constantly
increasing in the past few years, of the Habsburg state. The more its activities broke
the predominance of the Germans, the more the country succumbed to a system of
playing off the nationalities against one another. In the Reichsrat itself this was always
done at the expense of the Germans and thereby, in the last analysis, at the expense of
the Empire; for by the turn of the century it must have been apparent even to the
simplest that the monarchy's force of attraction would no longer be able to withstand
the separatist tendencies of the provinces.
On the contrary.
The more pathetic became the means which the state had to employ for its
preservation, the more the general contempt for it increased. Not only in Hungary, but
also in the separate Slavic provinces, people began to identify themselves so little with
the common monarchy that they did not regard its weakness as their own disgrace. On
the contrary, they rejoiced at such symptoms of old age; for they hoped more for the
Empire's death than for its recovery.

In parliament, for the moment, total collapse was averted by undignified
submissiveness and acquiescence at every extortion, for which the German had to pay
in the end; and in the country, by most skillfully playing off the different peoples
against each other. But the general line of development was nevertheless directed
against the Germans. Especially since Archduke Francis Ferdinand became heir
apparent and began to enjoy a certain influence, there began to be some plan and order
in the policy of Czechization from above. With all possible means, this future ruler of
the dual monarchy tried to encourage a policy of deGermanization, to advance it
himself or at least to sanction it. Purely German towns, indirectly through government
official dom, were slowly but steadily pushed into the mixed-language danger zones.


Even in Lower Austria this process began to make increasingly rapid progress, and
many Czechs considered Vienna their largest city.
The central idea of this new Habsburg, whose family had ceased to speak anything
but Czech (the Archduke's wife, a former Czech countess, had been morganatically
married to the Prince-she came from circles whose anti-German attitude was
traditional), was gradually to establish a Slavic state in Central Europe which for
defense against Orthodox Russia should be placed on a strictly Catholic basis. Thus,
as the Habsburgs had so often done before, religion was once again put into the
service of a purely political idea, and what was worse-at least from the German
viewpoint-of a catastrophic idea.
The result was more than dismal in many respects. Neither the House of Habsburg
nor the Catholic Church received the expected reward.
Habsburg lost the throne, Rome a great state.
For by employing religious forces in the service of its political considerations, the
crown aroused a spirit which at the outset it had not considered possible.
In answer to the attempt to exterminate the Germans in the old monarchy by every
possible means, there arose the PanGerman movement in Austria.
By the eighties the basic Jewish tendency of Manchester liberalism had reached, if

not passed, its high point in the monarchy. The reaction to it, however, as with
everything in old Austria, arose primarily from a social, not from a national
standpoint. The instinct of self-preservation forced the Germans to adopt the sharpest
measures of defense. Only secondarily did economic considerations begin to assume a
decisive influence. And so, two party formations grew out of the general political
confusion, the one with the more national, the other with the more social, attitude, but
both highly interesting and instructive for the future.
After the depressing end of the War of 1866, the House of Habsburg harbored the
idea of revenge on the battlefield. Only the death of Emperor Max of Mexico, whose
unfortunate expedition was blamed primarily on Napoleon III and whose
abandonment by the French aroused general indignation, prevented a closer
collaboration with France. Habsburg nevertheless lurked in wait. If the War of 187071 had not been so unique a triumph, the Vienna Court would probably have risked a
bloody venture to avenge Sadowa. But when the first amazing and scarcely credible,
but none the less true, tales of heroism arrived from the battlefields, the 'wisest' of all
monarchs recognized that the hour was not propitious and put the best possible face
on a bad business.


But the heroic struggle of these years had accomplished an even mightier miracle;
for with the Habsburgs a change of position never arose from the urge of the
innermost heart, but from the compulsion of circumstances. However, the German
people of the old Ostmark were swept along by the Reich's frenzy of victory, and
looked on with deep emotion as the dream of their fathers was resurrected to glorious
reality.
For make no mistake: the truly German-minded Austrian had, even at Koniggratz,
and from this time on, recognized the tragic but necessary prerequisite for the
resurrection of a Reich which would no longer be-and actually was not-afflicted with
the foul morass of the old Union. Above all, he had come to understand thoroughly,
by his own suffering, that the House of Habsburg had at last concluded its historical
mission and that the new Reich could choose as Emperor only him whose heroic

convictions made him worthy to bear the 'Crown of the Rhine.' But how much more
was Fate to be praised for accomplishing this investiture in the scion of a house which
in Frederick the Great had given the nation a gleaming and eternal symbol of its
resurrection.
But when after the great war the House of Habsburg began with desperate
determination slowly but inexorably to exterminate the dangerous German element in
the dual monarchy (the inner convictions of this element could not be held in doubt),
for such would be the inevitable result of the Slavization policy- the doomed people
rose to a resistance such as modern German history had never seen.
For the first time, men of national and patriotic mind became rebels.
Rebels, not against the nation and not against the state as such, but rebels against a
kind of government which in their conviction would inevitably lead to the destruction
of their own nationality.
For the first time in modern German history, traditional dynastic patriotism parted
ways with the national love of fatherland and people.
The Pan-German movement in German-Austria in the nineties is to be praised for
demonstrating in clear, unmistakable terms that a state authority is entitled to demand
respect and protection only when it meets the interests of a people, or at least does not
harm them.
There can be no such thing as state authority as an end in itself, for, if there were,
every tyranny in this world would be unassailable and sacred.


If, by the instrument of governmental power, a nationality is led toward its
destruction, then rebellion is not only the right of every member of such a people-it is
his duty.
And the question-when is this the case?-is decided not by theoretical dissertations,
but by force and-results.
Since, as a matter of course, all governmental power claims the duty of preserving
state authority-regardless how vicious it is, betraying the interests of a people a

thousandfold-the national instinct of self-preservation, in overthrowing such a power
and achieving freedom or independence, will have to employ the same weapons by
means of which the enemy tries to maintain his power. Consequently, the struggle will
be carried on with 'legal' means as long as the power to be overthrown employs such
means; but it will not shun illegal means if the oppressor uses them.
In general it should not be forgotten that the highest aim of human existence is not
the preservation of a state, let alone a government, but the preservation of the species.
And if the species itself is in danger of being oppressed or utterly eliminated, the
question of legality is reduced to a subordinate role. Then, even if the methods of the
ruling power are alleged to be legal a thousand times over, nonetheless the oppressed
people's instinct of self-preservation remains the loftiest justification of their struggle
with every weapon.
Only through recognition of this principle have wars of liberation against internal
and external enslavement of nations on this earth come down to us in such majestic
historical examples.
Human law cancels out state law.
And if a people is defeated in its struggle for human rights, this merely means that
it has been found too light in the scale of destiny for the happiness of survival on this
earth. For when a people is not willing or able to fight for its existence- Providence in
its eternal justice has decreed that people's end.
The world is not for cowardly peoples.
How easy it is for a tyranny to cover itself with the cloak of so-called 'legality' is
shown most clearly and penetratingly by the example of Austria.
The legal state power in those days was rooted in the antiGerman soil of
parliament with its non-German majorities- and in the equally anti-German ruling


house. In these two factors the entire state authority was embodied. Any attempt to
change the destinies of the German-Austrian people from this position was absurd.
Hence, in the opinions of our friends the worshipers of state authority as such and of

the 'legal' way, all resistance would have had to be shunned, as incompatible with
legal methods. But this, with compelling necessity, would have meant the end of the
German people in the monarchy-and in a very short time. And, as a matter of fact, the
Germans were saved from this fate only by the collapse of this state.
The bespectacled theoretician, it is true, would still prefer to die for his doctrine
than for his people.
Since it is men who make the laws, he believes that they live for the sake of these
laws.
The Pan-German movement in Austria had the merit of completely doing away
with this nonsense, to the horror of all theoretical pedants and other fetish-worshiping
isolationists in the government.
Since the Habsburgs attempted to attack Germanism with all possible means, this
party attacked the 'exalted' ruling house itself, and without mercy. For the first time it
probed into this rotten state and opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands. To its
credit be it said that it released the glorious concept of love of fatherland from the
embrace of this sorry dynasty.
In the early days of its appearance, its following was extremely great, threatening
to become a veritable avalanche. But the success did not last. When I came to Vienna,
the movement had long been overshadowed by the Christian Social Party which had
meanwhile attained power-and had indeed been reduced to almost complete
insignificance.
This whole process of the growth and passing of the Pan-German movement on
the one hand, and the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party on the other,
was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study.
When I came to Vienna, my sympathies were fully and wholly on the side of the
Pan-German tendency.
That they mustered the courage to cry 'Loch Hohenzollern' impressed me as much
as it pleased me; that they still regarded themselves as an only temporarily severed
part of the German Reich, and never let a moment pass without openly attesting this
fact, inspired me with joyful confidence; that in all questions regarding Germanism

they showed their colors without reserve, and never descended to compromises,